The following is a fictional short story with a heavy Celtics theme which will be published in five parts over the course of this week. I hope it will provide a form of entertainment as we fill some time before the Celtics return. I hope you enjoy the story. Please note, this contains some NSFW language.
If There’s Green, There’s Still Life
By John Karalis
Read Chapter 1 here
Read Chapter 2 here
Read Chapter 3 here
Read Chapters 4 & 5 here
Chapter 6
I woke up on Sunday morning looking forward to the afternoon game against Toronto. This would be the fourth game my father and I had gone to this season and it was feeling like a bit of ritual. Sure, we’ve had our problems, but I’d begun to rationalize him as a remnant of the past with a good heart and bad influences. I’d considered submitting him to a “nature versus nurture” study at some university. Maybe someday I’d even look into whether such a study existed.
I was on my phone scrolling through Twitter when my sister’s number popped up as an incoming call. I was in a great mood, so I answered in my great mood way.
“Thank you for calling Domino’s, can I interest you in a heart attack dessert today?”
The heavy sobbing on the other end immediately turned my enthusiasm into panic.
“Dad’s… gone,” she breathlessly exhaled through her sobs.
I felt a punch to my throat. I couldn’t breathe and it made my eyes water.
“No” is the only word I managed to get out.
“No”
I said it again.
“Not yet.”
We had a game to get to. It was the Raptors. We were going to make fun of their division banners. We were going to make fun of their favorite player now on our team. He couldn’t leave me now. Not again.
We had plans.
“Billy,” she said. And then…
Sounds.
Those sounds echoed in my head for days. They’ll live with me forever. The public face my sister put on her relationship with our father was just the surface of a complicated mess of emotions that manifested themselves as those sounds. The unintelligible sounds were more than sobs. They heaved from her heart and spoke more than words ever could.
Her relationship with him was as complicated as mine.
I’d spent the days between Sunday and the funeral coming to appreciate the fact that I’d retained any relationship at all. I had spent years bemoaning the faults that had grown between us and not enjoying any of the similarities. There should have been some more forgiving, I thought, on the nurture side, and more connection on the nature side.
None of it mattered at this point. All that mattered was the conversation I had with my sister the day before where she told me I was delivering the eulogy. That she couldn’t, and no one else would.
What was I supposed to say?
The night before I sat at my computer writing and erasing paragraph after paragraph. I never got past the second one before I highlighted everything and hit delete. I tried writing it like a press release. I tried it after drinking bourbon. I tried it after cruising through Twitter. Nothing.
At four in the morning, I woke up to 114 pages of the letter “j” after falling asleep with my hands on the keyboard. I had a full glass of bourbon on the desk, which would have been by sixth had I managed to pour it down my throat. I thought about drinking it, but instead I curled up on my office couch.
The next day was a blur. I remember Amira poking me awake. I remember somehow showering, shaving, and getting dressed. The first real, honest memory I had was standing in the church, looking at my father’s coffin, and begging him to get out of it.
He didn’t.
I felt a nudge in my side. It was my sister, who was elbowing me to let me know it was my turn. I took a deep breath and walked past the coffin. The heels of my shoes clacked loudly on the marble and echoed through the room. I turned and faced everyone.
Five seconds passed.
Then another five.
And another.
Have you ever counted out what 15 seconds of silence is really like? Staring at a room full of people, with your dead father in a box ten feet away? It might as well have been a year.
“I don’t know if I would have been standing here if my father had died two months ago.”
I looked down. I looked over at my father. Then back at the crowd.
“I mean, I would have shown up. I’m not a jerk. But I don’t know if I would have had anything to say.”
My sister’s gaze felt hot.
“I suppose, if this was two months ago, and I was forced to stand up here in front of all of you to say things about my father, I might have said, ‘here lies a selfish asshole who finally got what was coming to him.’”
The priest coughed.
“I might have said that and worse. And they would have been true things. They’re still true today, actually.”
My sister’s head dropped.
“I can almost feel him nodding in agreement in that box over there. He knew it. If he could open that lid right now, he’d do it to grab a drink, or a smoke, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be to correct me right now.
“But two months ago I would have stopped there, and walked off. I would have been satisfied with myself. I would have gone on with my life as if nothing happened.”
I looked at the priest, who looked back at me like a bartender looking at a guy who’s been drinking all day and was suddenly questioning his ability to settle this bar tab.
“My father wasn’t a great guy. He made a lot of mistakes. Bad ones. Unforgivable ones. In fact, as I’m saying these words right now, you’re probably looking at that box and running through a list of the mistakes he’s made.
“He screwed up a lot. But it wasn’t because he didn’t care. It was because he didn’t know to be better.”
My sister looked up.
“He didn’t know how to do the right thing a lot of the time, and when he did the wrong thing, he turned away and tried to drink away his shame. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but it was what he did. Because that’s what he knew.
“I think I’m doing alright in life. My sister is doing alright in life. And those two things mean something when it comes to remembering what our father was. The things he hid from us earlier in his life, the things he shoved aside and the public face he wore at our games, or recitals, or graduations, or… whatever.
“This was a man with demons that followed him around on a daily basis. It wasn’t until I was a grown man that I got to see those demons. Maybe I was just getting older and wiser and able to see things I didn’t as a child.
“Or…”
I paused. My sister was crying. So was my wife.
“Or maybe he was showing them to me for the first time. Maybe he was tired of hiding the things he was dealing with. Maybe he was trying to ask me for help with them. And maybe all I saw were the demons and not the man behind them who thought the only way to get rid of them was to drown them in a bottle of Jack.”
Tears started down my face. I held my voice as steady as I could.
“My father gave me a lot. He taught me lessons even when I didn’t know he was teaching me anything. He taught me what not to do as much as he taught me what to do. He taught me how not to act as much as he taught me how to be a man. He taught me how not to be a father as much as he taught me how to raise a child. And for all those lessons, I’m grateful.
“But perhaps most of all, I’m grateful for one special gift he gave me. An heirloom, of sorts.
“When I was seven, he took me to my first Boston Celtics game. Back then, I just like bouncy balls and guys running around in green or white and everyone yelling when the ball went in. Over the years, though, I started to understand the underlying message of identifying so closely with a team like the Celtics.
“I learned that there is joy and there is sadness. I learned that there is work, and there is fun. I learned that a collection of individuals could work together in a way that made something beautiful. I learned that there are stars and role players, but everyone is a teammate.
“I learned that sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. And the only way to not keep losing is to keep doing the right things with the right people.
“It’s kind of ironic, I guess, that if my father’s life was a team, it would probably be the Clippers more than the Celtics.”
I laughed a tiny bit to myself as I scanned the room. I wasn’t sure if they were just waiting for my next line, were questioning whether I’d used “ironic” correctly, or just didn’t get the Clippers joke. I pressed forward.
“My point is, he didn’t win as much in life as the Celtics did on the floor.”
My voice cracked on “floor.” I looked down at my shoes for a few seconds.
“It’s not that he didn’t want to. He just couldn’t.”
I felt like the air was thinning.
“But he’s a winner to me. I get that now. It took all this for me to get it. When I look at my son, and I see myself in his eyes, I know I need to be the dad he always wanted to be but couldn’t.”
My cheeks were wet. My eyes burned.
“I don’t wish for more time with my father. I only wish I’d realized these things sooner, so the time we had was better. I’m not going to make those mistakes again. I’m not going to make his mistakes.
“Dad… thank you for the lessons. Thank you for the games. And thank you for coming back into my life at the buzzer to tie these lessons together. I hope you get to meet Red up there, and share a laugh and a beer when the Celtics win it all again.”
I held onto the podium for dear life until my legs regained feeling. When they did, I walked over to my father’s coffin and laid my hand on it for a moment, before sitting back down next to my wife. My head hung down to the floor for the rest of the service. Random hands patted me on the back, but I never knew whose they were.
The drive to the cemetery was a short one. After a few more words from the priest, it was time.
People laid flowers on the casket, said their prayers, and left. I waited until the end. My wife took the boys and waited by the car.
I stood there alone, staring at the box, and the hole waiting for it. I stood there for a long time; so long that a man I didn’t know walked over to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “sir.”
I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out an envelope. In it was a ticket stub. I pulled it out, and laid it on his coffin.
May 26, 1987. Detroit Pistons at Boston Celtics. Game 5.
I held it there for a moment and said in a gravely whisper, tears streaming down my face, “aaaaand there’s a steal by Bird… underneath to DJ and he lays it in!
“Thanks, Dad.”
I left it there, and walked away.
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